1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, a program for the image processing method, and a recording medium which records the program for image processing method, and can be applied, for example, to digital still cameras. The present invention makes it possible to detect areas respectively occupied by picked-up images of particular objects by performing template matching of reduced images in an order in which resolution sequentially varies on a step-by-step basis, thereby detecting the respective areas occupied by the picked-up images of the particular objects and appropriately setting the priority order.
2. Description of Related Art
In the field of digital still cameras, video cameras and the like, it has heretofore been proposed to provide a method of detecting an area occupied by a picked-up image of a particular object from an image pickup result and controlling an image pickup system on the basis of the image pickup result of the area. In this method, the face of a person is mainly applied to the particular object, and an area occupied by a picked-up image of the particular object, for example, an area of skin color, is detected as by template matching using a template.
As to such a method, Japanese Patent Application Publication Number 2004-30629 proposes a device related to detection of an area occupied by a picked-up image of a face in template matching using a template.
The processing of detecting an area occupied by a picked-up image of a particular object from an image pickup result in this manner needs to be executed at sufficiently high speed so that the process can track the movement of an image pickup apparatus and an object. In addition, there is a case where areas respectively occupied by picked-up images of particular objects are detected at a plurality of locations, and in this case, it is necessary to appropriately set the priority order of the areas detected at the plurality of locations in order to determine which of the areas is to be processed at highest priority.